10 Must-Dos Before Starting a Family Business

Starting any type of business is not an easy task. Aside from careful planning and proper organization, you’ll need to take care of other legal, strategic and financial matters before you can open up shop. So, to make this process a bit easier, here are a few things you must do before you launch your new family business.

Create a business plan

Starting a family business is just like starting any other business – all the traditional rules still apply. So, what you should do first is create a business plan. This document will allow you to map out the entire process of starting and running a business, including future goals, the means necessary for achieving those goals as well as pro-formas.

Determine your budget

Another important aspect of launching a business is determining the budget. You can do this by running a market research and trying to identify your financial forecasting. Up front, you need to determine the amount of money necessary for the launch itself, as well as your future marketing efforts, overheads and other expenses. Also, try to determine how much money you’ll have to be making a month (i.e. how well must your sales do) to cover all of your expenses – pay cheques included.

Do market research

Further, you’ll need to conduct proper market research before you launch your business to see whether there’s any room for it on the market. If there is no room or audience for your business, launching it doesn’t make much sense.

Find the right location

Finding the right location for your business can mean the difference between success and failure. However, no matter how good the location is, avoid blowing your budget on a pricey office. Instead look for cheaper alternatives. For example, if you find a place that’s of a good size but has some problems with mould – go for it. It will be significantly cheaper, and you can consider hiring experts for mould removal to rid your new office space of this nuisance.

Invest in marketing

A good marketing plan is something no business can do without, especially a business on the rise. Therefore, come up with a good marketing strategy and advertise your business through all the relevant channels. Running a family business can be the thing that sets you apart from the rest of the crowd, so make sure you emphasize it throughout your marketing campaigns.

Educate your employees

When running a family business, it’s important to understand that you shouldn’t run around looking for the right type of employee when the need arises – rather, you should invest in educating a family member how to do the job right. Besides, investing in your business and your family at the same time can only bring numerous benefits.

Determine the hierarchy

It’s important to determine who the key figure is, as well as who will have the final say when it comes to decision-making. Running a family business is a joint effort, but there should still be one person whose voice should be louder than others’. It’s crucial to determine who that person will be from the start to avoid any unpleasant situations.

Find the right middleman

Sometimes, running a family business can be particularly difficult. Personal matters are bound to infiltrate the workplace at some point, so it’s important to find the right middleman to handle such situations. The person you choose for this job should not be a family member.

Establish mutual respect

This is another thing you need to take care of before launching your business. It’s important that all of your employees understand that that’s what they are in the office – not family members. The tricky part is that, after a particularly difficult day at work, you can go home to your wife and complain about your boss; however, if your wife IS your boss, you’ll need to approach the matter in a much different way. Remember to always stay calm and respectful.

Don’t bring your work home with you

Making a clear line between your job and private life is of the utmost importance. All of you will be seeing each other day in and day out in the office, as well as at home. That’s why you should try to leave personal matters at home and avoid mentioning business-related issues over a Saturday night family dinner.

As you can see, running a family business is not essentially different than running any other business, but it can raise some awkward situations. Therefore, you need to create a clear hierarchy and make sure everyone understands their role in the entire process to avoid unnecessary frustrations and make the entire endeavour more pleasant for everyone involved.

10 Must-Dos Before Starting a Family Business was last modified: August 24th, 2018 by Infobitservice